Jalen Rose

NBA Announces Player Pool For 2024 Rising Stars Event

The NBA has officially revealed the 11 rookies, 10 sophomores, and seven G League players who will take part in the Rising Stars event at All-Star weekend in Indianapolis next month.

The following players, as voted on by NBA coaching staffs, made the cut:

Rookies

Sophomores

G League Players

As was the case last season, the Rising Stars event will consist of four teams and three games. The seven G League players will comprise one team, coached by former NBA forward Detlef Schrempf. The other 21 players will be drafted to three squads coached by former NBA and WNBA stars Pau Gasol, Jalen Rose, and Tamika Catchings.

The four teams will be split into two first-round matchups and the winners of those two games will face one another for the Rising Stars championship. The two semifinals will be played to a target score of 40 points, while the final will be played to a target score of 25 points.

All three contests will take place on Friday, February 16 as part of All-Star weekend’s opening night.

And-Ones: J. Van Gundy, J. Rose, Two-Way Rules, Free Agents

The NBA broadcasts on ESPN and ABC will look a little different next season, according to Andrew Marchand and Ryan Glasspiegel, who report in a pair of stories for The New York Post that the network is letting go of game analyst Jeff Van Gundy and studio analyst Jalen Rose as part of a series of layoffs.

According to The Post’s reporting, ESPN is letting go of about 20 on-air personalities in a cost-cutting move. Van Gundy and Rose had both been earning millions per year in their roles on the network’s marquee broadcasts. Rose was generally on the panel for pregame and halftime shows, while Van Gundy was part of ESPN’s and ABC’s top TV broadcast team alongside play-by-play man Mike Breen and fellow analyst Mark Jackson.

According to The New York Post, JJ Redick, Doris Burke, and Richard Jefferson are among the top candidates to replace Van Gundy on the top ESPN/ABC broadcast team.

Here are a few more odds and ends ahead of a busy NBA weekend:

  • The NBA’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement includes a rule change that will be informally known as the “Harry Giles III rule,” writes Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report. As Haynes explains, the tweak will allow a player to sign a two-way contract if he has four years of NBA service but missed an entire season during those four years due to an injury. Previously, players with four years of NBA service were ineligible to sign two-way deals even if they hadn’t actually played in NBA games during each of those four seasons (a player earns a year of service if he’s on a standard or two-way contract for at least one day during the regular season). Giles is among the players who fits this bill, having missed his entire rookie season in 2017/18.
  • In an Insider-only article for ESPN.com, Bobby Marks takes a shot at projecting the starting salaries for all of this year’s free agents, from Kyrie Irving ($38-40MM) and Fred VanVleet ($30-35MM) all the way down to the probable minimum-salary recipients.
  • Chris Herring of SI.com identifies nine players who could benefit most from a change of scenery this summer, in his view. Herring’s list includes some unsurprising picks like Damian Lillard and Deandre Ayton, as well as some outside-the-box choices such as Jarrett Allen.

And-Ones: Webber, Forbes List, World Cup, EYBL

Chris Webber may have been passed over again for the Hall of Fame, but former college teammate Jalen Rose is confident that he will get there, writes Jason Jones of The Athletic. Rose, who hosts a talk show on ESPN, played alongside Webber for two years at Michigan as part of the groundbreaking Fab Five.

“Webb shouldn’t spend a second worrying about that — it’s going to happen,” Rose said. “And also, it’s well deserved. And it’s the basketball Hall of Fame, so he’ll get in. He should get in solely on his impact with the Fab Five because the Fab Five should be in. If you just took his high school and his pro (career), he should be in.”

Webber played 15 NBA seasons, finishing with career averages of 20.7 points and 9.8 rebounds per game. He was named national player of the year in high school and was the top pick in the 1993 draft. However, his time at Michigan was tainted by his alleged involvement in a scandal that resulted in the Fab Five’s Final Four banners being removed.

There’s more from around the basketball world:

  • LeBron James is the top-ranked NBA player on Forbes’ annual list of the world’s highest-paid athletes. James had $88.2MM in combined earnings, placing him fifth on the list, which is topped by tennis star Roger Federer. Stephen Curry (No. 6) and Kevin Durant (No. 7) are the only other NBA players in the top 10.
  • The FIBA World Cup 2023 board held its first planning meeting this week through video conference, according to Dario Skerletic of Sportando. The event is scheduled for August 25 to September 10, 2023, with games in Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines. “We were all witness to an incredible event last year in China,” said event chairman Richard Carrion. “The next FIBA Basketball World Cup will be brought to another level in 2023, taking place in Asia across three countries, and we are looking forward to the continued collaboration with these host nations.”
  • The Elite Youth Basketball League is the latest event lost because of the coronavirus, writes Jeff  Borzello of ESPN. Nike announced the cancellation Saturday, ending any hope that the competition, normally played in April and May, might take place later this year.
  • Point guard Scott Machado, who played briefly with the Lakers last season, has agreed to a two-year contract extension with the Cairns Taipans in Australia, tweets Emiliano Carchia of Sportando. However, the team issued a statement saying there’s no formal agreement in place yet with Machado, who got into four games with L.A. on a 10-day contract last March.

Jalen Rose Aspires To Co-Own Pistons

Detroit native Jalen Rose has ambitions to join the Pistons‘ ownership group sometime in the future, as he told Richard Deitsch on his podcast (h/t Matt Schoch of The Detroit News).

“I would love to be a minority owner with the Detroit Pistons,” Rose said. “I feel like there’s a wealth of things that I could bring to the table.”

The Pistons are approximately worth $1.27 billion, according to the latest Forbes’ valuation. Tom Gores originally bought a 51% stake in the team for $325MM back in 2011 before buying the remainder of the franchise in 2015.

The Pistons have since opened a new arena in downtown Detroit, a development that earned Rose’s approval.

“I applaud him bringing the team downtown,” Rose said. “That’s something that’d stood out to me.”

Rose also mentioned that he could have an interest in coaching in the future either at the collegiate or professional level. Still, he’s not ready to quit his day job, as he loves ESPN.

“If they’ll have me, I’ll do this until I’m Hubie Brown’s age,” Rose said of his fellow ESPN analyst, who is 86 years old.